A/N: No Martha yet, but soon. This chapter is for Laura who is seventeen tomorrow! (good job Lausa you've truly made it)
Amy reads the memo twice, but her name doesn't appear on the roster of employees chosen for River's Italy trip. Amy had been, she thought, a shoo-in for the team: she'd put in more hours on Pompeii than everyone except Dr. Song herself. But it relieves her, too. The idea of spending four months side-by-side with the wife of the man she dreams about fucking had been intimidating, to say the least.
She closes out of her email, the fizzy electric light of her computer screen scratching at her eyes. She feels Lewis's gaze on her, but when she turns around, he's staring at the wall. He's been catty lately. Not, you know, out right, because he doesn't talk, but he's giving her the look. Judgmental.
She needs a break, just to process the memo business, so she heads to the bathroom to hide out. River's departure means Jamie's time will free up. It means he'll be around more, even more, as if he didn't devote a ton of hours to Amy already. He's started eating into her work time with his barrage of visitations; it's possible that the extended absences lost her the Pompeii gig, and if that's true she doesn't know what to think, except that the prospect of even more time with him makes her nervous. She doesn't have much faith in her self-control.
After she's wasted a good ten minutes contemplating the dinosaur drawing etched into the stall partition, the door creaks open and two unidentifiable but familiar female voices enter.
"I am excited about it," says one woman. "But four months away from New York!"
Oh, great. This is just the conversation she wants to overhear.
"Didn't you apply?" asks the second woman.
"Yes, but I thought I'd figured out everyone that was getting picked." The voices, as far as Amy can tell, enter the stalls on either side of her so that they're talking over her head. "I was sure Pond would get that spot."
Groan.
"Right, well, you know why she didn't." The second woman sounds secretive. Fuck, she's back in high school. Not even college, high school.
"Oh, I'm sure Dr. Song's got her reasons."
"Her reasons? It's her husband. He's infatuated with her." Her heart stops.
"With Dr. Song?" asks the first woman, puzzled.
"No, no, with Amy." Amy clamps a hand over her mouth, swallowing her gasp.
"So why would she want her here when she's gone, that doesn't—"
"No, the husband is clingy. He used to come here everyday with lunch for her."
"Oh my God."
"But now he comes for Pond," giggles the second woman, clearly the gossiper. Beverly, maybe? But Beverly's older. "And he takes her out to do things during work hours all the time." Amy flushes the toilet furiously, and goes to wash her hands, the stall door banging on her way out.
"She's getting paid to entertain the husband. That's awful." No, it's worse than awful. It's horrifying. Her cheeks are red in the mirror above the sink. One of the women flushes, and then the other. Her jaw's so tense it starts to ache.
"It's great, if you ask me," says Gossip. "I'd kill to have someone do my pillow talk for me." She emerges from the stall, then catches Amy staring at her in the mirror. Cassandra from Acquisitions.
"What?" asks the first woman at her friend's silence. She exits and sees Amy too. Penny. The least competent of the research assistants. Both the women stand frozen, gaping at Amy, like they're waiting for her to spit hellfire and leave them both crispy.
She dries her hands and beams at the pair. "Have a good afternoon, girls," she says on her way out.
Lewis. It must have been Lewis, the tattler. She'd known he was up to something.
Infatuated.
Jamie is infatuated with her.
That summer in Portland he'd looked at her a lot of ways, with a lot of sentiments, but not once would she have called it infatuation. It wasn't sickly or heady in the way of that word.
Infatuated is Rory's designation and she reserves it for him. But as the youth drains from Jamie's face, his expressions are less dynamic, less revealing, rubbery, more difficult to read. She doesn't see infatuated, but she sees very little.
Portland: one day they'd climbed some mountain—she can't recall which—and at the top he stood behind her, just talking and talking, some things never change, and he'd brushed his hands over her bare arms as if he might transmit some excess energy to her through the contact. Initially he'd been trying to point out a feature in the valley below them but Amy had leaned back against his chest and then he couldn't, wouldn't stop fingering the goosebumps he raised on her skin, his nose nestled in her hair, his breath poking at stray strands as he mumbled on about glaciers, about pedicabs, about springtime.
She'd been turning around to kiss him when a family of hikers charged into the clearing, their squeaking children smeared with trail mix chocolate, breaking her and Jamie apart.
But she still has the feeling of his face pressed into her hair, his breath on the skin behind her ear, all guarded by her memory. His hands. Infatuated.
"I don't know what that means," she tells him, as they sit in the park, back-to-back, atop one of the rocky scrapes—left by the glaciers—that dapple the park. It has been three days since she overheard Cassandra and Penny, and she's determinedly willed away remembering their conversation, especially in Jamie's presence.
"It's perfectly clear," he insists.
"Is it?"
She feels him shake his head. "Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven," he reads. "Yes, that's rather simple, Pond."
Amy rolls her eyes even though he can't witness her disdain. "You going to explain it or not?"
"I'm almost certain if you just thought about it, you could—"
"Don't want to, I'm lazy, just tell me."
Jamie sighs. "It means often we—we are often capable of solving the problems that we wait for fate to take care of." His voice softens. "It's an excellent notion. I really don't put it half as well as him."
She thinks he did just fine. "Keep reading."
"The fated sky gives us free scope—so, we have free will—only doth backward pull our slow designs when we ourselves are dull. That's a little harder. Our plans… will only go awry if we've planned them foolishly." She peeks over her shoulder and his brow is furrowed. "I think."
"Only fools fall in," Amy sings.
"What power is it which mounts my love so high," he reads, voice crackling. "That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye? That's—that's…"
"I got that one." She ignores the anxious twinge of her stomach.
"Really? What does it mean, then, Pond?" he asks, not sounding quite himself.
"She's asking who made my love—like, the person I love—who made me notice him and then made it so I couldn't have him." Amy clears her throat and starts getting a cigarette. "She's talking about that Bertram guy."
"That's right," he says, pleased.
She lights her smoke. "I don't know why she likes him, he's a dick. They must've gotten a hot actor or something." Jamie laughs.
"You're not the first person to make that observation about Bertram. Shall I continue?"
"Sure."
"The mightiest space in fortune nature brings to join like likes and kiss like native things." He pauses. Amy doesn't get that one at all, but it sounds pretty good. "I think it means that nature… gives fortune the power to bring people who are meant to be together, together."
She gulps. "I don't even get your version of it."
"It's difficult." He continues, "Impossible be strange attempts to those that weigh their pains in sense and do suppose what hath been cannot be. Those who are too cautious about striving for unusual goals, and who don't think miracles that have happened can happen again, those people will never be able to do amazing things. What a great idea, don't you think?"
"Sure," she says, smiling faintly.
"Who ever strove to show her merit, that did miss her love? No one has ever failed to win her love who really tried to show her… merit."
"Huh." There's something unnervingly optimistic about that sensibility. She doesn't like it.
"More?"
"No. Does she get him in the end? Bertram." She takes a long drag.
"You want me to tell you how it ends?" he asks incredulously.
"Yeah, if I know how it ends I don't need to read the whole thing. It's All's Well That Ends Well."
He chuckles, and scoots around to face her. "If you must know, yes, she does. But it's not all that simple. Their marriage seems completely insincere. That's why they call it a problem comedy."
"Nothing's simple," Amy points out. Jamie shrugs. "Hey, speaking of how things end." She bites her lip. He's looking out across the sunny, buzzing park. "I was wondering."
"Yes?"
"When'd you finally lose your virginity?" It has nothing to do with anything, her wanting to ask. She's been wondering for two months now, ever since they'd reunited, is all. Totally normal.
He turns to her slowly, shocked, like they might be arrested for indecent conversation in a public place. "Pond."
If he gives her the aunt voice, she swears— "Yeah?"
His manners must break down because he's battling a smile. "You are very forthright."
"One of my many great attributes." He's obviously just avoiding the question and Amy nudges his arm. "Come on."
"I was twenty-three," he says, fiddling with the battered corners of the play in his hands.
"Who was she?"
"Well, she was brilliant and beautiful." He grins. "She was so brilliant and beautiful that when she came back into my life a few years later, I asked her to marry me."
The realization opens up slowly, a wound in her chest. "You lost it to River." He nods. "Have you ever even been with anyone else?"
Blushing, Jamie looks down, a boy again. "Not—only if you count, you know, what we—"
"That doesn't count," she says, maybe more harshly than necessary, but she's not sure if she believes it and she doesn't want to rehash that experience, now of all times. "So if you didn't see her for years, did you just, not do it?"
He's still not looking at her. "Sex means something different to everyone, Amy." He's starting saying the word 'sex' out loud.
"But like—you have needs, everybody does, how did you not go crazy—"
"Enough about that," he says with determined cheer.
"Three months for me and I feel like I'm going to murder somebody," she mutters. Jamie must pretend not to hear, but they're sitting close enough he can't have missed it. "That's kind of cute, I guess. That your wife is the only woman you've ever been with."
He smiles, but this gesture is also determined, like it's in spite of something. "I like it that way."
"So what, did you just get down on one knee the next time you saw her because she taught you that much about sex?" She's hilarious. She's hilarious even when there's nothing funny or cute about Jamie and River's marriage. She can't think of anything they do as classifiably cute. She can't think of anything they do: she's only seen glimpses of their interactions, but it's always one or the other, River at work and Jamie at play. They've never even invited her over for dinner. Maybe they think it'd end badly. Maybe they're right.
"No," he laughs, the edge of discomfort in his voice. "We saw each other for a year before. But it was a great proposal. I planned…" She glances up and he's peering over at her with an odd expression. She's trying to hide her dismay at having to hear the story of his proposal to River, but it must backfire, because he smiles briefly and wraps it up, "I planned a whole thing. And it worked."
"Obviously," she says, attempting her usual humor. Had he really brought her lunch everyday? He probably thought they were soulmates. He probably believes in soulmates.
"Obviously," he repeats, going back to his reading.
River asks to speak with her, and closes the door once they're alone. Her office is about as well tailored as her suit, which is very.
"Amy," she says. "Have a seat."
Amy can't decide if she wants this to be about Pompeii or not. She's been debating the issue for ten minutes, ever since River's petite blonde assistant appeared in the doorway of her office.
"I have a proposal for you," River begins, leaning back against her desk. She has a languorous way of speaking, devilishly coquettish. Perhaps Jamie and her flirt well, perhaps that's something they do together. Amy should start a running list of possibilities.
"Okay."
"You get along well with James. He enjoys your company, and you enjoy his, I think?"
"Yep," Amy says, flatly so as not to betray her awkwardness.
"As you know, I'll be away for four months, beginning in a few weeks."
"Yep."
"Now, assuming he's told you about our arrangement—"
"Your arrangement?"
River's eyebrows arch elegantly, as befits her. "Yes." Amy shakes her head, not understanding. "When we're separated for long periods of time, James and I take lovers."
Amy does a figurative spit-take. Her stomach is on the floor. Her head is somewhere else. "Take lovers," she echoes. Who fucking says that?
"If we didn't, we'd be starved of one another's company, and after a time we'd inevitably end up resentful." River explains the—arrangement—with honest nonchalance, like it's the most normal thing in the world. "This is the healthy approach, believe me. And I was going to suggest that you sublet that little place of yours and move into the apartment while I'm away."
"Take lovers?" echoes Amy again. It clicks, everything River has told her about lovers and apartments. "Me?" Infatuated. "You think—I'm—me and Jamie, we're—"
River assesses her, still smiling. "He really hasn't told you anything, has he?"
"No." Or rather, fuck no.
River takes a long moment to consider, presumably, her husband's discretion. "Well. Now you know there's no shame in your feelings."
"Nope," Amy coughs. "No shame. Not in my feelings."
"It's a short and lovely commute from the apartment, and clearly you'll have more responsibilities here with such a large portion of the staff being on the dig." River moves around the desk to take a seat in her stuffed leather chair, like something out of Wall Street. "And Miranda has started going to visit her granddaughter on the weekends, so the whole place is rather too big for just James, I think. He's prone to restlessness enough as is."
"I'd like to start from the beginning," says Amy. The rhythm and calmness of River's voice has lulled her to a cautiously level head. "You want me to move into your place for four months while you're in Italy so I can be Jamie's—James, your husband—so I can be his live-in mistress and also… work more hours."
River squints, searching for missed content. "Yes, that's correct."
Amy gives her a big smile. "Your marriage is very unusual."
"I think that's quite a good thing, considering what's usual for marriages is ending in divorce. If you make arrangements for a car to move your things, we'll gladly pay for it."
"Uh." There's no question mark, no request, and there really ought to be when there's so many things wrong here Amy doesn't even know where to begin: an open marriage, her participation in said open marriage, Jamie lying about having never been with anyone but River. It's not a can of worms, it's a fucking twelve pack.
"I'm sure we both have work to do," says River gently, and Amy hops to her feet.
"Absolutely. I'll see you. Sorry, thanks. No, not sorry." River smiles. "Just thanks. Nothing to apologize for!" She must be blushing. She's probably been blushing the whole time. "Bye."
When she gets back to her desk, Jamie is sitting at it, grinning, which doesn't last.
"I don't understand why you're dragging me!" Jamie shouts. People in the park are staring at them.
"We need to get to your apartment so we can have a conversation in private!"
"What is so important that you can't just say it now?" He struggles wildly against her grip, looking even more noodley than normal. She'd gotten him out of the museum and into the park but barely, maybe a hundred feet, before he'd stopped them here, in front of a gelato stand whose attendant watches them, gaping.
"I promise you." Amy pulls him close by the arm of his jacket. "You don't want all these people hearing what I have to say."
"It's fine, Pond!"
Fine. Fine. Nothing's fine. "All right, you want this?" She lets go of him and he checks himself ostentatiously.
"Thank you," he huffs.
"River called me into her office to tell me that if I'm going to be your mistress—" Jamie freezes in the midst of a cuff-check. "—I might as well come live in the apartment while she's gone."
He turns his gaze to her slowly, delaying the building-sized awkwardness of their situation. "She told you that?" he asks quietly.
"Yeah." Amy stands there with her arm crossed and her hip jutting out to one side and the wind getting her hair all in her face and she stares him down. "Few things. One, what the fuck is up with your marriage. Two, are you lying to me or River about how many people you've slept with. Three, I'm not your mistress, and I'm not going to be, so just wipe it from your brain, you raggedy idiot."
Jamie looks out across the park with his mouth hanging open, stricken by the culminating problems he's worked so diligently to bury. "Amy," he says hopelessly. "I lied to her."
Her chest swells a little with this small, inappropriate victory over his wife. "You lied to River?" The gelato attendant sneezes and Amy shoots him a glare.
"She needs to be with someone," Jamie says, his eyes fluttering closed. "When she's abroad. And I can't be there. And I want her to be happy, it's useless if she's made to feel bad about it, so I said I'd allow it if it went both ways, and now—and now she thinks I do that. Have a person when she's gone."
"Oh." Amy feels a little embarrassed that the atrocity is, in truth, an act of self-sacrificial devotion. She pictures Jamie showing up at River's office with sandwiches in brown paper bags.
He rubs his eyes, still turned away from her, not wanting her to see him struggle. "I apologize for getting you dragged into it." This is potentially the most sincere apology she's ever gotten from him about anything, and her cheeks are warm.
"No, it's—I didn't know you were just, you know. Making it work."
Two people walk up to buy gelato from the stand, so she and Jamie shift to the side, having lost the attention of the attendant and the people scattered nearby.
"I'll talk to her soon. Tell her the truth," he says.
"No."
Jamie frowns at her. She'd be frowning at her, too.
"I just mean." Amy clears her throat. "If it's working for you guys, then you can tell her whatever you need to about us."
He smiles slightly, not quite believing, and then broader once Amy mirrors the expression. "Really, Pond?"
"Really. Though," she winces, "I may have accidentally agreed to move in with you for four months. I didn't really know how to say no."
Jamie perks up, inches taller at prospective cohabitation. "You should!"
"What?"
"Come stay with me." He takes her hand. Yes, she'll make a very good… pretend mistress. "You love the apartment, and it's closer to work, and River expects it anyway, so why not?" Jamie's grin is like all his other grins: wide, invasive, winning. "We'd be roommates. Well, not roommates. You'd have your own room and bathroom and everything. But apartmentmates! It'll be the most convincing fake romance in history," he declares.
Amy knows this is bad. She knows that any kind of close quarters with Jamie isn't going to improve her dreams, that she should be spending less time around him if anything, that four months is far too long. She doesn't need a shrink to tell her these things.
But all she can think about is the color of the sky over Manhattan seen from that huge window, the buildings craning upward, the park awash in fall colors. Their sheets probably have a thread count in the billions.
"Yeah," she says. "Of course I'll move in with you."
A/N: Ahahahaha.
